Skip to main content

Main menu

  • HOME
  • CONTENT
    • Early Release
    • Featured
    • Current Issue
    • Issue Archive
    • Collections
    • Podcast
  • ALERTS
  • FOR AUTHORS
    • Information for Authors
    • Fees
    • Journal Clubs
    • eLetters
    • Submit
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • ABOUT
    • Overview
    • Advertise
    • For the Media
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Feedback
  • SUBSCRIBE

User menu

  • Log in
  • My Cart

Search

  • Advanced search
Journal of Neuroscience
  • Log in
  • My Cart
Journal of Neuroscience

Advanced Search

Submit a Manuscript
  • HOME
  • CONTENT
    • Early Release
    • Featured
    • Current Issue
    • Issue Archive
    • Collections
    • Podcast
  • ALERTS
  • FOR AUTHORS
    • Information for Authors
    • Fees
    • Journal Clubs
    • eLetters
    • Submit
  • EDITORIAL BOARD
  • ABOUT
    • Overview
    • Advertise
    • For the Media
    • Rights and Permissions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Feedback
  • SUBSCRIBE
PreviousNext
Research Articles, Systems/Circuits

A Redundant Cortical Code for Speech Envelope

Kristina B. Penikis and Dan H. Sanes
Journal of Neuroscience 4 January 2023, 43 (1) 93-112; DOI: https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1616-21.2022
Kristina B. Penikis
1Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York 10003
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Kristina B. Penikis
Dan H. Sanes
1Center for Neural Science, New York University, New York, New York 10003
2Department of Psychology, New York University, New York, New York 10003
3Department of Biology, New York University, New York, New York 10003
4Neuroscience Institute, New York University Langone Medical Center, New York University, New York, New York 10016
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • ORCID record for Dan H. Sanes
  • Article
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

Animal communication sounds exhibit complex temporal structure because of the amplitude fluctuations that comprise the sound envelope. In human speech, envelope modulations drive synchronized activity in auditory cortex (AC), which correlates strongly with comprehension (Giraud and Poeppel, 2012; Peelle and Davis, 2012; Haegens and Zion Golumbic, 2018). Studies of envelope coding in single neurons, performed in nonhuman animals, have focused on periodic amplitude modulation (AM) stimuli and use response metrics that are not easy to juxtapose with data from humans. In this study, we sought to bridge these fields. Specifically, we looked directly at the temporal relationship between stimulus envelope and spiking, and we assessed whether the apparent diversity across neurons' AM responses contributes to the population representation of speech-like sound envelopes. We gathered responses from single neurons to vocoded speech stimuli and compared them to sinusoidal AM responses in auditory cortex (AC) of alert, freely moving Mongolian gerbils of both sexes. While AC neurons displayed heterogeneous tuning to AM rate, their temporal dynamics were stereotyped. Preferred response phases accumulated near the onsets of sinusoidal AM periods for slower rates (<8 Hz), and an over-representation of amplitude edges was apparent in population responses to both sinusoidal AM and vocoded speech envelopes. Crucially, this encoding bias imparted a decoding benefit: a classifier could discriminate vocoded speech stimuli using summed population activity, while higher frequency modulations required a more sophisticated decoder that tracked spiking responses from individual cells. Together, our results imply that the envelope structure relevant to parsing an acoustic stream could be read-out from a distributed, redundant population code.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Animal communication sounds have rich temporal structure and are often produced in extended sequences, including the syllabic structure of human speech. Although the auditory cortex (AC) is known to play a crucial role in representing speech syllables, the contribution of individual neurons remains uncertain. Here, we characterized the representations of both simple, amplitude-modulated sounds and complex, speech-like stimuli within a broad population of cortical neurons, and we found an overrepresentation of amplitude edges. Thus, a phasic, redundant code in auditory cortex can provide a mechanistic explanation for segmenting acoustic streams like human speech.

  • amplitude modulation
  • auditory
  • cortex
  • envelope
  • speech
  • temporal coding

SfN exclusive license.

View Full Text

Member Log In

Log in using your username and password

Enter your Journal of Neuroscience username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
Forgot your user name or password?

Purchase access

You may purchase access to this article. This will require you to create an account if you don't already have one.
Back to top

In this issue

The Journal of Neuroscience: 43 (1)
Journal of Neuroscience
Vol. 43, Issue 1
4 Jan 2023
  • Table of Contents
  • Table of Contents (PDF)
  • About the Cover
  • Index by author
  • Masthead (PDF)
Email

Thank you for sharing this Journal of Neuroscience article.

NOTE: We request your email address only to inform the recipient that it was you who recommended this article, and that it is not junk mail. We do not retain these email addresses.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
A Redundant Cortical Code for Speech Envelope
(Your Name) has forwarded a page to you from Journal of Neuroscience
(Your Name) thought you would be interested in this article in Journal of Neuroscience.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
Print
View Full Page PDF
Citation Tools
A Redundant Cortical Code for Speech Envelope
Kristina B. Penikis, Dan H. Sanes
Journal of Neuroscience 4 January 2023, 43 (1) 93-112; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1616-21.2022

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero
Respond to this article
Request Permissions
Share
A Redundant Cortical Code for Speech Envelope
Kristina B. Penikis, Dan H. Sanes
Journal of Neuroscience 4 January 2023, 43 (1) 93-112; DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1616-21.2022
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
  • Tweet Widget
  • Facebook Like
  • Google Plus One

Jump to section

  • Article
    • Abstract
    • Introduction
    • Materials and Methods
    • Results
    • Discussion
    • Footnotes
    • References
  • Figures & Data
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF

Keywords

  • amplitude modulation
  • auditory
  • cortex
  • envelope
  • speech
  • temporal coding

Responses to this article

Respond to this article

Jump to comment:

No eLetters have been published for this article.

Related Articles

Cited By...

More in this TOC Section

Research Articles

  • The Anterior Cingulate Cortex Promotes Long-Term Auditory Cortical Responses through an Indirect Pathway via the Rhinal Cortex in Mice
  • Prior Movement of One Arm Facilitates Motor Adaptation in the Other
  • Intracranial Electroencephalography and Deep Neural Networks Reveal Shared Substrates for Representations of Face Identity and Expressions
Show more Research Articles

Systems/Circuits

  • Fast-Spiking Interneurons of the Premotor Cortex Contribute to Initiation and Execution of Spontaneous Actions
  • The Anterior Cingulate Cortex Promotes Long-Term Auditory Cortical Responses through an Indirect Pathway via the Rhinal Cortex in Mice
  • Glucagon-Like Peptide-1 Receptors in the Gustatory Cortex Influence Food Intake
Show more Systems/Circuits
  • Home
  • Alerts
  • Visit Society for Neuroscience on Facebook
  • Follow Society for Neuroscience on Twitter
  • Follow Society for Neuroscience on LinkedIn
  • Visit Society for Neuroscience on Youtube
  • Follow our RSS feeds

Content

  • Early Release
  • Current Issue
  • Issue Archive
  • Collections

Information

  • For Authors
  • For Advertisers
  • For the Media
  • For Subscribers

About

  • About the Journal
  • Editorial Board
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact
(JNeurosci logo)
(SfN logo)

Copyright © 2023 by the Society for Neuroscience.
JNeurosci Online ISSN: 1529-2401

The ideas and opinions expressed in JNeurosci do not necessarily reflect those of SfN or the JNeurosci Editorial Board. Publication of an advertisement or other product mention in JNeurosci should not be construed as an endorsement of the manufacturer’s claims. SfN does not assume any responsibility for any injury and/or damage to persons or property arising from or related to any use of any material contained in JNeurosci.